Tepary Insanity

Oh no. We bought more seeds.

I read about the Tepary Bean, went to the ECHO seed site, and that was all she wrote. If "all she wrote" means I also "needed" an assortment of other equally-enticing seeds.

It's not as if we actually NEED more things to plant. There are no vacancies in Bucketville. But seeds, we buy.

(Thank goodness I'm not the only one out here so afflicted. This condition could be more contagious than the swine flu...)

As for the above picture, I have to get a good look at these before the heat kicks 'em hard. This is about the only time of year these vines look good, or at least that was the case last year.

None of them set fruit last year, so I'm thinking of trying my hand at my very first batch of pickles before too long just to road test the grape leaves...I remember my Grandma's dills having a clove of garlic and a grape leaf in each jar...mmm :) There is a little market nearby and they have a lot of cucumbers, but we aren't enough in the groove with timing and growing yet to have our own.

I think these guys will get harvested this weekend, and salads will abound! After they're feasted on, we'll plant something geared more toward the hot weather. The days now are quite hot, though there are some mild nights still...but there is still NO RAIN.

This is about the actual size of one of the friendly little lizards that are all over the place here.

When I first moved down here, they kind of freaked me out, but since they're not poisonous and don't bite, and DO eat prodigious quantities of crawly bugs, I've warmed to them. I love seeing them peeping out from leaves. They take giant leaps if they think we're too close, and the males show off for the gals by extending their throat flap, waving down their women and bobbing their heads.

Yeah, little guy, you're cool :)

I'm really excited that we may have solved our Floridians-Do-Not-Plant-For-Summer-Harvests dilemma. The weather here has extremes that do in a lot of hot weather crops that flourish elsewhere...maybe the non-winters, the extra parasites, the extremes of drought and monsoon?? Whatever the case, we've had to explore additional resources to find some that we hope will be up to the challenge. The ECHO global farm was a great place to nose around for those sorts of answers...here's an order we placed that I can't wait to try our hand at planting.

Some of these are dual-purpose plants, and all are supposed to be hardy and worthy of some kitchen and garden experimentation. Woo, happy!

To arrive soon, seed packets (as if we ever have enough):

Cranberry Hibiscus ---flowers, edible! leaves, edible!

Lima Bean- 'Pima Orange' -- can't wait to see if this one does well...gorgeous colored heirloom bean

Lima Bean-'7 Year' -- hullo, this is the Madagascar bean we've been looking for!

Malabar Spinach, Red -- they had this growing as a ground cover around other plants at ECHO, sort of a prostrate viney non-invasive plant, gorgeous red stems and green leaves

Okra-'Burgundy' -- who can resist more red?? :)

Papaya-'Red Lady' -- and even more red. A more dwarf type, though it is a hybrid

Pigeon Pea-'Vegetable' --we'll see if we can grow 'em, and if so, how we best can use 'em

Pumpkin, Tropical-'Brian' -- Again, I'm enamored with growing drought-tolerant plants. let's see if it'll make it

Tepary Bean -- Here's one I have high hopes for. They might weather the fluctuations better than our snaps and purple hulls, we'll see. They sounded vigorous and delicious in the preliminary reading I've done, and can be used as a green manure cover crop. I'll have to check but I think the leaves are edible. Don't take my word on that, I'm sleep deprived. Sleep deprived and with visions of seeds STILL dancing in my head.

Yardlong Bean 'Mix'-- we'll have to get some verticality going for these and the madagascars and a couple of the others listed above. So far we've done bush-type beans and we're dealing with poor soil, straight up wood shavings and horse poo, and a whole lot of weeds. Soil improvement is a labor of love and isn't an overnight phenomenon. Anyway, these look productive and they're beautiful. And take fewer square feet of terra firma

Hopefully some of these will grow enough to eat them and figure out what works well. It'll be fun trying :)

But for now, I've been up nearly 24 hours, so it's lights out for me.

The old gray mare, she ain't what she used to be. (But she's not out to pasture yet, either, ha!)

I hope your weekend is wonderful!

Shabbat shalom

Why I Have Changed My Mind About Florida

I'm not much of a Florida person. I moved here to be with my husband, but quite against my will had it not been necessary at the time.

I'm not a beaches person, though they're stunningly beautiful.
I don't relish over-100 degree fahrenheit temps.
I don't appreciate over-priced properties.
Not a huge fan of constant tourist influxes.
Hurricanes are low on my list of favorite weather systems.
Florida architecture? Hmmm.
Palm tree vs. oak tree? Oak tree.
Trout stream vs. swamp? Oh trout stream, how I long for thee.
I won't even tell you how it feels when you have to go north to be in the South.


And so on and so on.


Until today...

when my hubby surprised me and took me for a day trip to an ECHO test site...where they test seeds/plants and grow crops and forest gardens to help train workers headed for underdeveloped countries, and they experiment with crops suitable for different climates with indigenous plants and plants with multiple uses.

And methods that are not technology-dependent.
And no-till/pro-permaculture methods of farming.
And an emphasis on small farming rather than big agriculture.
And an emphasis on finding solutions for food shortages and poverty by training people in self-sufficiency, especially agriculture.

Oh, and they have chickens (and other animals).

This was like paradise.


And here are some reasons that today I changed my mind about Florida. At least when it comes to gardening...

Keep in mind it's late December now. Here are some scenes that greeted us today -- none have been altered in any way. You can click on each picture to get a better idea of why it was so glorious being there up close and personal...

I'll post more about what we saw, but for now, I just wanted to share some eye candy. EVERY tree seemed to be loaded with fruits. We got to taste a lot of plants we'd never tasted...yum! There was so very much to see, there just was not time enough to take it all in. We'll have to make future trips and hopefully be allowed to wander through and savor each part, really get a good look at a lot of their innovations, really study the plants and make a good plant list, see how they dealt with different topographical and climate specifics...and so on. I won't even tell you about the nursery till then...so many multiple-use plants and so many plants I've never heard of, wooo...FUN!!

We didn't leave unscathed. We did purchase a jujube sapling, a few seeds, and a 6 dollar old book entitled Folk Remedies of the Low Country by Julia Morton.

I have to go now...we walked and walked and walked all morning and now I'm tired. I was able to be with my sweetie all day, which is the best sort of day to have!

I'll share more about our jaunt as I can this week. I hope everyone has a wonderful night and day tomorrow :)

We're now heading into the last hours before nightfall and I have to get some things done before shabbat begins.

Hug the ones you love and stay warm, all you who are in The Real U.S.A....ha :) I hope your week was great!

Shabbat shalom :)

Life: Sweet and Sour

Sweet: My daughter surprised me with a small blue vase she had seen and thought I'd like...which I did. She bought it for no other reason but that

Sour: She's moved out this weekend, and we're not sure we'll have Thanksgiving this week together

Sweet: Jack has more work this week...HUGE yay!!

Sour: He and I won't have Thanksgiving together, since he'll be working. I'll pack him a bang-up meal, though!

Sweet: The air is springlike here...such wonderful, incredibly beautiful days!

Sour: We're losing a few plants either to the temp changes or to the fact we were over-eager in putting manure on some of them

Sweet: Our neighbor brought us a third trailer load of free manure!!

Sour: Jack's leg is preventing him from doing any work on the hardpan that we're trying to tun into garden beds for spring.

Sweet: Our bills are met as of today

Sour: Tomorrow's bills look bigger due to circumstances

Sweet: I'm feeling healthy, have gotten some outdoor things done, am working on the indoor ones, and am sleeping well at night most of the time

Sour: I'm missing my daughter and for some reason really really missing my family dog we had to give away 4 1/2 years ago. Very strange to feel that at the same time as missing my daughter, but sometimes you just need your dog. I need to GET a dog, but it wouldn't be responsible right now. Not that I'd be entirely responsible if I were the only person in this household, but I have a hubby who reminds me there'll be a right time, and he's right. Doggone it.

Sweet: I've loved looking at the Dogs Available for Rescue sites.

Sour: I'm in love with one of them and can't rescue him. Note to self: Do NOT look at rescue dogs right now...

Sweet: I'm glad my daughter has survived her teen years and is now a young adult. There are so many things I love about her!

Sour: Did I mention I'm missing her?

Sweet: We are well stocked now for most of our dry staple foods.

Sour: Jack was told he can have NO starches or dairy, except yogurt, oatmeal and maybe beans. Most sugars are out, too. NO bread, cornbread, desserts, breaded things, cheese, milk sour cream, etc etc. This is a GOOD thing for his health! It's a BAD thing for the pantry now stocked with so many starches.

Sweet: We did get the freezer, and stocked it with frozen turkeys on sale for $.79/lb. We're ecstatic about this!! There was enough budgeted for that to get a few bags of fish, too. Fish is our weekly "date meal" we usually have as a treat at a restaurant once a week, if finances allow. Now we can have it at home, deliciously, and if we want to get out of the house for a "date" instead of staying at home, we can just have a cup of tea out or some 2 for 1 coupon special, which we like just fine.

Sour: As we were almost done in the checkout line buying all those turkeys, the man in front of us told us of somewhere we could have gotten them for $.59/lb....whoa!! But it would have involved a pretty long drive, and all things considered, we went ahead and got the $.79 ones anyway. No problem :) I just wonder how much more $$ we could have squeezed out of the $.59 ones if I had just called around first...

In the end, the sweet wouldn't be nearly as sweet without the sour. And I'm grateful for the whole shebang. We're keeping a lot of things in prayer, namely our need to sell our vacant residential lots that are sitting in this stagnant market. And we're praying for others, too...friends and loved ones far and near. It's true that life's much bigger than just our little piece of it :) God is good, and I always think of that simple Robert Louis Stevenson line from A Child's Garden of Verses (something I always read to my daughter when she was younger)...

The world is so full of a number of things, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.

I wrestle with anxiety, sadness, and restlessness over many developments that have arisen as challenges in areas not on the above list. I also am beset with gratitude, gratitude, and more gratitude for all the things I'm blessed with. If I'll keep a child's-eye view, I WILL see so many things from a much more "royal" perspective...

:) Til later...